Many friends and work colleagues have asked me about a typical St Patrick’s Day in Ireland and they are often surprised when I describe it as a great sporting day. Sure there are plenty of parades and storytelling and even drinking. But for a great many Irish people this day is the day of The All-Ireland Club finals in Hurling and Gaelic Football. To put this into some perspective there are 1,000,000 members of the GAA worldwide, the governing body of Ireland’s native games, that is just over one fifth of the total population of Ireland. So it is no understatement to say that the Irish are passionate about their Gaelic games.
In Wales we have a national treasure in S4C which protects and promotes Welsh culture; recently S4C has been under attack from the Tory/Lib Dem government.
Since Setanta ceased transmission in Great Britain, television rights for the games have been owned by the little know subscription channel, Premier Sports, which shows the big championship games, but not minor championship games apart from the finals.
Is it possible that an S4C that showed a GAA highlights programme could increase viewership figures by attracting Welsh people interested in Ireland, Welsh people interested in sport and members of the Irish Diaspora.
This would have many benefits for Wales including bringing a previously untapped seam of viewers for S4C, promoting Wales to grateful Irish emigrants and promoting a unique sporting experience to the young people of Wales.
Good idea. We could also do with coverage and further promotion (in schools) of Welsh Baseball :)
ReplyDeleteI agree more should be done to promote Welsh baseball, I know there have been international games between Wales and England, but perhaps we could have an international compromise rules game between Wales and Ireland, as rounders comes under the auspices of the GAA
ReplyDelete